It is conventionally known that in a flat knitting machine provided with a pair of front and back needle beds, a tubular knitted fabric having front and back knitted fabrics that are continuously formed at both ends can be knitted by feeding a yarn alternately to knitting needles on the front and back needle beds so as to carrying out round-knitting. As a tubular knitted fabric, clothing and the like worn on the body can be seamlessly knitted. Herein, it is necessary to prevent mutually opposing knitting needles that catch the knitted fabrics on the respective needle beds from moving away from each other, at a knitting end portion at which knitted fabrics knitted on the front and back needle beds are continuously formed. When mutually opposing knitting needles that catch the knitting ends move away from each other, the continuous portion is stretched, and thus stitches become coarse, causing the problem that the external appearance as a product is marred or that the continuous portion is broken during knitting.
The body that wears the clothing has a shape in which the breast portion is larger than the back portion in the upper body, for example, and thus it is preferable to increase the number of wales on the side worn on the breast portion. In a case where clothing in which the number of wales is different between front and back knitted fabrics in this manner is knitted with a flat knitting machine as a seamless tubular knitted fabric, it is conceivable to knit the knitted fabrics at an equivalent knitting width on the front and back needle beds by shifting the knitted fabric having a larger number of wales to the needle bed allocated for the knitting of the knitted fabric having a smaller number of wales. Herein, a part of the knitted fabric having a larger number of wales is knitted, not on the needle bed originally allocated for the knitting of stitches thereof, but on the needle bed opposed to this needle bed. For example, in a case where the number of wales is larger in a knitted fabric that is knitted on the front needle bed, when a stitch knitted on the front needle bed is turned onto the back needle bed, the stitch is twisted. When a stitch is formed on that stitch, the stitch is fixed as a twisted stitch. When a stitch is a twisted stitch, there is the problem that the external appearance is marred. The present applicant has disclosed a technique for preventing a twisted stitch in this case, as a tubular knitted fabric having a three-dimensional silhouette and a method of knitting the same (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 5-9851 (1993), for example). According to this technique, a stitch that is to be turned onto the back needle bed is formed so as to be twisted in advance on the front needle bed. The twist of the stitch that has been formed to as to be twisted in advance is cancelled when the stitch is turned onto the back needle bed, thus there is no problem in forming a stitch on that stitch.
In a case where clothing worn on the body is knitted as a tubular knitted fabric and the tubular knitted fabric is constricted by forming a dart, conventionally, the same dart is formed in the front section and the back section, so that there is no difference in the number of wales between the knitted fabrics of the front section and the back section that are knitted on the front and back needle beds. Such a tubular knitted fabric does not completely fit an asymmetric body.
According to the method disclosed in JP-A 5-9851, while forming a three-dimensional silhouette by increasing or decreasing the number of wales in one of front and back knitted fabrics in a tubular knitted fabric, it is possible to obtain an equivalent knitting width for knitted fabrics caught on front and back needle beds, and to prevent formation of a twisted stitch. However, in order to prevent formation of a twisted stitch, it is necessary to form a reversely twisted stitch in advance on a needle bed on the opposite side, so that the twist is cancelled as the stitch is shifted between needle beds. Thus, this method takes extra effort.